FIRST SWARM OF THE SEASON AND WHY WE NEED TO CATCH THEM
CARRYING THE SWARM TO THE APIARY
Bank holiday weekend and a chance to relax. She says…
In preparation for going into hospital, (on the Thursday before the weekend), to have a benign but rather large lump removed from near my shoulder, I had - as you know - done a split on my strongest colony to ensure, (as much as you can ensure anything with honeybees), no swarm cells appear and performed an artificial swarm on another large colony which had produced queen cells in preparation to swarm.
Feeling relatively smug that no inspection would be required and definitely no lifting of heavy boxes I prepared myself to have a bee free bank holiday weekend. However, the bees, not mine I might add, thought - as honeybees are want to do - differently. “Relax?” they buzzed. “Bee free weekend?” We don’t think so!”
And so it was, as my husband and I moseyed on down to the local pub for a pleasant late afternoon drink I was alerted to the fact that there was a loud buzzing coming from and a lot of excited honeybees encircling a hedge bordering the house next door to said pub. And yes, upon inspection, though the commotion was evidence enough, there was a swarm of honeybees in the hedge.
A few people were watching from a safe distance, with their drinks in hand as the bees gathered around their queen, having found a place to settle pro tem while the scout bees went off in search of a more permanent abode.
So, with the kind help of my brother in law and fellow beekeeper Chris, (think something akin to a stab wound in my back following my surgery), we set about cutting the rather large swarm out of the hedge and putting it in to a box. All very successful. It was obvious almost immediately that we had the queen in the box so we left a small gap for the bewildered flying bees to figure out where their queen had gone and joined the others at the pub while they sorted themselves out. Below is a video I put together of re-hiving the swarm.
Of course, it caused a great deal of interest as people watched the remaining bees gradually settling down and making their way into the box to join their queen while we enjoyed the previously planned drink. I, being the good beekeeper I am stuck to lime and soda. Tis not a job to be tackled while “under the influence!”
The question arose though as to why the swarm had to be caught and re-hived rather than letting it go into the wild where they belong. Was I a bad person, selfishly wanting these bees for myself so I could harvest their honey? Should I let them go and just be honeybees in the woods and crack on with their lives? After all, they have outlived the dinosaurs. Why do they need us now and why can’t they ‘fly solo’ so to speak?
As I have said many a time, the honeybees haven’t realised, as yet, and thank the lord they haven’t, that they are no longer wild in the UK and cannot survive as a species without being kept by beekeepers.
So, here’s the question… Why do honeybees no longer survive in the wild? I am often told, during talks, that someone somewhere has been on holiday where feral bees have been living in a barn for years, or that feral honeybees have been living in their attic for years. Perhaps, even while out walking they have spotted feral honeybees happily coming and going from a tree. Well, yes… I’m sure they have, in fact I know someone who has got bees (and bats) in their attic but try as I might to explain, these bees are more than likely, endless swarms that have got away! They are unlikely to be the same family of bees who have survived against the odds!
Up until 1992 our native honeybees lived very happily in the wild and in conjunction with beekeepers. However, that fateful year brought with it the Varroa Destructor. I tiny little red, crab like mite, about 1.5mm in width that made its way over from Europe and into our wild colonies and beehives. At first beekeepers didn’t pay much attention to the little mite, until, that is, they were experiencing whole colonies collapsing. And the likes of the National Bee Unit were seeing the wild bees begin to die out.
This is a very brief outline of the Varroa Destructor mite, a major honeybee parasite. Under a microscope it looks a bit like a hairy crab. Normally brought into the hive on the backs of adult bees, especially drones, (male bees), as they are known for travelling between hives. Once inside the hive, the female mites fall unnoticed into uncapped brood cells and hides underneath the larva and food. Once the cell has been capped the tiny mite climbs on top of the now developing bee, tears open a hole in its flesh and begins to feed on the fat body tissue. Within three days the mite lays an egg, which is always male, then, over the next week or so she lays one egg every thirty hours. As each of these female mites mature they mate with their brother. By the time the baby bee develops and leaves its infested cell, she will be small and weak and sometimes have deformed wings and as many as three mites leave with her and so the cycle continues. The Varroa mite population grows alongside the honeybee colony throughout the spring and summer but as the honeybee colony decreases in size, during the autumn and winter months, the hive is left with a huge mite population and too many mites in a hive will overwhelm and kill entire bee colonies.
The varroa mites need controlling. Obviously this isn’t possible in the case of feral bees, hence they die. They can only be controlled in an apiary. And so we treat our bees. Shook swarms in the early spring is a very effective way of controlling varroa. This is when a beekeeper shakes all of the bees out of the old hive into a new one on to fresh comb. This gets rid of any varroa that might already be in the new brood the that the queen has started to lay. And then there are the use of organic acids and pesticides. I’m not going to go into these here as it is way too complicated so I will put this link here for you to click on if you want to look into it further
The other reasons for the honeybees decline, in brief are:
Pesticides - they effect their navigation, cause infertility, and interfere with their communication, to name but a few side effects.
Monoculture farming - this is becoming more and more popular as the population increases. The honeybees are limited to one source of pollen for extended periods of time which results in the loss of a diverse food source that leaves them unhealthy and with a weak immune system.
Loss of habitat - Again, with our ever increasing population the bees natural habitat, i.e., woodlands and meadows, are being torn up in order to build houses etc. This again takes away large swaths of their habitat rendering them homeless and with a lack of food source.
Climate change - Let’s not even go there! I’m not being flippant… it’s a subject I will tackle another week. I think you’ve read enough!
So… there it is… Has this answered the question as to why we no longer have wild honeybees in the UK? Am I a bad person for catching a swarm and re-hiving it? I think you now know the answer! Yes ferel bees do exist, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they don’t exist for long and if left alone they will eventually infect our lovely colonies that we so diligently care for.
So there it is…let’s leave this blog on a positive note. More and more people are taking an interest in becoming beekeepers. If you are one of them… PLEASE… join a local club and learn how to care for them properly. Honestly it’s not difficult and it’s such a wonderful hobby. A hobby that, like gardening, gives back to nature.
Once again, as always I thank you for reading this weeks blog. What will next week bring? Who knows… certainly not me and the honeybees aren’t saying a word, after all… they don’t know they’re not wild!
I shall leave you with this quote I heard last night, well actually in the early hours of this morning, while listening to a talk by Cynthia Bourgeault. She said she heard it from a Friar in Italy…
“NO CONSCIOUS WORK IS EVER WASTED… IT WILL FLOW BACK INTO OUR BELOVED PLANET.”
Now if that doesn’t apply to the honeybees I don’t know what does. If only we humans could emulate our honourable honeybees…
Have a wonderful week…